"You forget," I broke in, "that people wish to enjoy fiction with the heart alone, not with the intellect, and that the heart refuses everything which is not closely akin to it. Therefore I feel very lenient toward the average reader. In real life he is interested only in certain things which he understands, prizes, and considers desirable; such as money and land, social reputation, family happiness, and more of the same sort. Consequently, he likes in books only such stories as deal with rich and poor, rogues and honest men, and, for a sort of relish, with a little of the so-called love necessary to complete a happy marriage. Whatsoever there is beyond that, is evil. Yet in every human breast there lives a still presentiment that there is something glorious about the unusual, about a feeling, for instance, that fills the heart to overflowing, even to the breaking of all conventional bonds. But my poor wise Leopardi was right; the world laughs at things which it otherwise must admire, and, like the fox in the fable, blames what it really envies. A great love, for example, with its passionate joys and sorrows, is universally envied, and therefore unsparingly condemned. They consider it dangerous, and I have found this view sanctioned everywhere in men's judgments of life and fiction. 'Do not destroy my home!' cries the peaceful citizen to the passion which is breaking into his house like an armed man. And if he feels himself adequately protected by his armor of conventionality, more invulnerable than iron or steel, he fears for children and parents, and the tender heart of his wife. Although the danger may not have been great after all. Only what we recognize as true has power over our souls; and surely you yourself have seldom encountered in this cold world of ours any strong passion or heart-instinct out of the catechism, and yet truly felt."
"That is true," he said, "and therefore I have never yet discovered, either in psychology or romance, a trace of that peculiar situation which I mentioned. Once I imagined that, in the writings of one whom I consider a true artist, I had found something similar when, in looking over Alfred Musset's short stories, I came across the title 'Les Deux Maîtresses.' But no, the hero loved one and flirted with the other. That happens thousands of times. But what I mean--"
He broke off, seeming to regret that he had gone so far. I allowed only a slight word to betray my intense interest. I did not wish to elicit any confidence which he would not freely give me. I knew also that there is a midnight hour for long-buried histories, when they burst the bars of the closed breast and rise up to walk about once more in the pale light of a starry heaven. One must then guard his tongue well, for a careless word may frighten the timid ghosts back to their graves.
So I remained silent and waited. We were approaching a little enclosure, a grove of ash-trees, and on the seats under the wind-tossed branches several homeless men lay sleeping peacefully. In the darkest corner of the shaded place stood an empty bench.
"If it suits you," said L., "let us sit here a moment. I would like best of all to imitate yonder vagabonds and spend the night here sub divo. The south wind possesses me."
Then, after we had been sitting dumbly side by side for some time, "Of what were we speaking?" he began; "was it not of people's inability to imagine situations which they themselves have never been through? How can one expect it of them, since even the individual himself cannot always comprehend what he has too undeniably felt?
"And when I now look back on that time and observe everything calmly from a distance, does not my own heart oftentimes seem to me a riddle? To you, indeed, that which is unintelligible to most people will seem natural enough; namely, that the love I bore my wife was strengthened instead of weakened by the years of unclouded happiness. One might say that every deep and earnest affection is artistic. As the artist and the poet bear and cherish the burning thought within them, ever striving to approximate it to their highest ideal, so love, if not mistaken in its object, is a ceaseless advance. But I see this comparison halts a little. Let it be. Only you must know that I was one of those fortunate beings who consider the possession of a beloved wife as a daily gift from the gracious gods; and that I was still feeling a sort of lover's devotion when the young likeness of the dear woman had already outgrown childhood.
"I do not know that you would have understood this better, if you had known the woman. Many passed her by without suspecting what a rare spirit looked out upon the world from those quiet, all-understanding eyes. I myself, in our first hour of meeting, felt indissolubly bound to her. But I shall not attempt to describe her. At this moment, as is always the case with those whom I hold dearest, I see her picture only in uncertain outlines, although I could draw any indifferent face even to the wrinkles. It was so even when she was living; I carried with me the feeling of her personality as a whole, and when she appeared it was like a new revelation.
"Many did not consider her a beauty, and she had not the slightest desire to please in that way. But to others she seemed supremely charming, and far beyond comparison with any merely pretty woman. I often pondered over this mysterious charm of hers. I came to the conclusion that, while the good qualities of the average lovable person affect us at different times, with her the whole character revealed itself every moment. Goodness, cleverness, earnestness and cheerfulness, grace and firm strength,--her entire treasure was always at hand. But I see I am still praising and describing. I will only say that the first meeting decided my fate.
"I immediately realized that it was not one of those sudden, short-lived passions which I had often experienced during my frivolous officer-life. Until now I had never, even in the warmest love-affair, been able to think of a union for life without feeling a quiet aversion to the loss of my freedom. In the first hour I knew that this love concerned my soul's welfare; that I could never again be my own master, even though I should be obliged to remain away from her forever. I could not long endure the uncertainty as to her feeling for me. I was somewhat spoiled by previous successes. Yet it scarcely distressed or surprised me, when, though she acknowledged that my presence was pleasant to her and that she would be glad to see me often, she said she did not return my passionate feeling, and thought too highly of a union for life and death to enter into it half-heartedly, as into something of little moment.